ORLANDO — Teddy Bridgewater returned to Vikings practices in mid-October, welcomed back by the team with a 41-second video to commemorate his return to the same football field that turned his left leg into such a discombobulated mess that amputation was discussed.

He was seen high-stepping and throwing a football, happy to be playing again 14 months after the injury, a swifter return to sports than anyone who had ever suffered a dislocated knee and torn ACL, according to the Vikings’ head athletic trainer.

Mike Zimmer, the head coach whose affection for the former first-round pick is well known, was impressed. Zimmer was so pleased by his practices that he put him in the team’s Week 15 blowout win over the Cincinnati Bengals.

But postseason tests from the medical staff delivered a bleaker look into Bridgewater’s status and the recovery still to come for the quarterback, part of the reason that the Vikings didn’t re-sign Bridgewater despite...

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